I’ve seen and heard casual mentions of a network of tunnels under downtown Dallas, Texas, but my google search seemed rather inconclusive and didn’t give me any information on what the tunnels are, why they are there, where they are, and whether they’re worth going into next time I’m in town. For instance, I was recently browsing advertisements for apartments in historic buildings (if I’m ever going to move out of the suburbs, I want to be moving into a building worth leaving the suburbs for), and one downtown turn-of-the-century former department store mentioned that they have easy access to the tunnels, without expanding on why this would be a selling point. It’s not a subway or railroad, as DART is above-ground as far as I can tell. I can’t tell whether it’s a simple set of walking tunnels, or a below-ground shopping center as sometimes seen in parts of New York City connecting to the subways, or what. For all I know, it’s a series of abandoned train tunnels and aqueducts comparable to the Paris catacombs. (I’m pretty sure it’s not, though that would be pretty dang awesome to explore.)
I have been in the Dallas tunnel system a several times, but all were in conjunction with the annual TubaChristmas, so my experiences are pretty limited.
From what I saw in my random roamings, it’s more or less a network of walking tunnels that connect many of the skyscrapers in that portion of downtown. There are shops in places, and in others it has an abandoned-subway kind of ambiance. I’ve eaten lunch at a few of the food joints there, and I recall seeing newsstands & barber shops, as well.
The system opens out into Thanks-Giving Square, which is where the TubaChristmas performance traditionally takes place. We usually rehearse in one of the large spaces down in the tunnel network (Imagine 100 low brass instruments in an echo chamber…).
Here is a map of the system that I found on the Bank One Center website; it appears to be more extensive than I’d realized.
A bit off-topic, but seeing the Chicago cargo subway system mentioned reminded me of this [URL=http://www.harpweek.com/09Cartoon/SearchByTopicCartoon.asp?Month=June&Date=15]cartoon[/URL ] from Harper’s Weekly. It was drawn in 1907 and shows a dirigible-airship delivering ice by a ‘shute’ on a building’s rooftop. There are also ‘shutes’ for groceries, meat, and coal. It’s ironic that the artist, who must of thought himself a visionary with the caption ‘Not Yet, But Soon’, failed to foresee the widespread use of fixed-wing aircraft and refrigeration (both of which had already been invented), the switch from coal to oil and later natural gas as the primary heating fuel, and the failure of the airship as a means of transportation.
I think it’s somehow relevant because the Chicago tunnels were opened at about the same time, and they proved to be a folly on a similar scale to an aerial ice-delivery service. A primary purpose of the Chicago tunnels, and probably similar tunnels in other cities, was to deliver coal to office buildings and take away ashes. So the tunnels were rendered largely obsolete when oil and natural gas replaced coal as a heating fuel.
On a somewhat related note, I’ve always been curious about what lies beyond Underground Atlanta. Supposedly just about every street in downtown Atanta is on a viaduct A small portion of the area underneath a couple of streets makes up Downtown Atlanta. What lies underneath the other streets? Googling is no help – there are just hundreds of references to the Underground Atlanta attraction – and I’ve sen nothing on urban exploration or vadding sites.
Weird, I live a block away from one of the tunnels and have never heard of them. Judging from the people hanging around above ground in Downtown Dallas, I don’t know if I I want to see who’s lurking below.
Ok, sweet, they do exist but nobody knows about them except the six people who run barbershops there.
Now all I have to do is find some thrift stores/vintage clothing stores (they don’t have a very strong web presence for some reason) and my plans for the next Saturday GUnslinger’s off work are set.